Where to Find Work: Top 5 U.S. Cities for Job Openings

If you’re looking for work, should you head north, south, east or west of where you are? Likely east.
Job site, Indeed.com, recently pulled together a list of the 50 most populous metropolitan areas in the U.S. and how they compare for finding a job. They researched job listings in each of the towns and then compared them to each city's jobless statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for June of 2009. Each town was given a ratio of job listings per unemployed person and only two are positive – Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD. Washington offers six jobs for every one person looking and Baltimore has three.
As you move down the list you see tougher statistics, like six job seekers for every one job in St. Louis, MO, 10 for every one opening in Miami, FL, and, finally, 18 job hunters for every gig listed in Detroit.
In an effort to help the cause of getting folks employed, I thought we could see, according to PayScale data, which jobs are most common in the cities with the most openings.

August 19, 2009

If you’re looking for work, should you head north, south, east or west of where you are? Likely east.

Job site, Indeed.com, recently pulled together a list of the 50 most populous metropolitan areas in the U.S. and how they compare for finding a job. They researched job listings in each of the towns and then compared them to each city’s jobless statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for June of 2009. Each town was given a ratio of job listings per unemployed person and only two are positive – Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD. Washington offers six jobs for every one person looking and Baltimore has three.

As you move down the list you see tougher statistics, like six job seekers for every one job in St. Louis, MO, 10 for every one opening in Miami, FL, and, finally, 18 job hunters for every gig listed in Detroit.

In an effort to help the cause of getting folks employed, I thought we could see, according to PayScale data, which jobs are most common in the cities with the most openings.

From D.C. to New York City, you can see where you might fit in best.

Below you will find graphs with the seven most common jobs in the top five cities according to PayScale’s database. Then, I’ve listed Indeed’s ratio of jobs openings to job seekers.